Nedly on his Treadly: San Lorenzo Nuovo to Rome

So I haven't updated my blog in quite some time, sorry about that. As I guess many of you would know, I'm now back in sunny Melbourne. The weather here is just amazing compared to what I experienced in Europe for the last 3 weeks of my trip, it's currently 40.5 degrees Celsius outside.
I plan to write the rest of my blog over the next few weeks, covering the last 3 weeks between Rome and London before I flew back to Australia for Christmas. Also since I'm now on a desktop (as opposed to my iPhone), I'll be able to include photos from my Canon Ixus 85IS compact camera rather than just photos from my iPhone which are of poorer quality.
I'll now take you back to Tuscany, where I rode from San Lorenzo Nuovo to Rome.

Monday November 29, 2010
I didn't sleep very well at all, the hard uncomfortable ground and the fact that I'd slept so much the day before meant I had a very patchy sleep. I didn't get up at 4 am because it was still raining. It was still raining at 5 am and 6 am too, so I turned my alarm off and woke up at 8 am, it had finally stopped raining and the sky was clearing up. About time!

A view of a large lake I had to skirt around, called Lake Bolsena, in Italy.

I packed up and headed off, and stopped about 10 km down the road when I found a supermarket. There I grabbed some milk and ate breakfast.
I was grateful for the fine weather but not for the sub-standard Italian roads. All day I was on narrow roads with constant traffic. I had to thank my lucky stars that I wasn't hit by a car.
After about 80 km, I was 40 km from Rome. I'd been making good progress when all of a sudden, the road I was on turned into an Autostrade, which cyclists aren't allowed to ride on. I checked the map for a suitable alternate route but there were none. The only ways I could go were huge detours, either to the coast or further inland. I went for the inland route, since I planned to take the coastal route on the way back out of Rome.
This detour would have added a good 30 or 40 km onto the trip distance.
So because of this, it got dark well before I was near Rome.
I ran out of energy at about 4:30 pm, so had stop for a late lunch and finished the last of my left over stroganoff which I cooked in Siena.
I listened to podcasts along the way when I could, but often there was too much noise from the traffic. The situation got worse as I approached Rome; the roads got busier and were still narrow, then it became a dual carriageway, and I wasn't sure if I was allowed to ride on it. Either way, I didn't feel safe or comfortable. So when the bike path started about 10 km from Rome, I was keen to get onto it. This proved much more difficult than expected and than it should have been but after hitting several dead-ends, I got onto it (see the map of my track, the bike path follows along the river).
Then, after I'd been on the bike path for only a kilometre or two, the path was closed off, because some of the wooden planks on a bridge were broken, and I couldn't get past the block. So then I spent the next hour or so trying to get back onto the bike path. I eventually did, but it was so difficult it was ridiculous, ended up taking a dirt track where a few vicious dogs chased me, and I was worried they would bite my leg.
The frustrations of cycling in Rome didn't stop there though. There were lots of little narrowed sections designed to stop cars and motorbikes, but they were so narrow that I struggled to get the loaded bike through them. Then there were things like steps on the bike path, and no bike path where my map said there was meant to be one. Oh, and it started raining too, so I couldn't easily look at my map. The whole experience of cycling there in Rome was inconvenient and frustrating.
Once in the city, I found some Wi-Fi and picked out half a dozen of the most suitable hostels from hostel world. I didn't think any would be full, so I just wrote down the address of one and went there. Unfortunately they were full though, except for a few €28 beds, much too expensive!
It was about 10 pm, steadily raining. I rode into the city a bit further, in search of Wi-Fi to look up more hostels. I found a sketchy connection outside a cafe/bar, so I sat down there under the canvas to shelter from the rain.
There was a middle aged Italian man and two middle aged Italian women sitting at the table beside me.

Some Italian locals in Rome.

They asked if I needed any help (they spoke English well enough for us to talk). I told them I was looking for a hostel. The bloke said he knew where one was nearby, and he described how to get there.

However, I stayed there to look up hostels, but the Wi-Fi connection wasn't working at all. We chatted a bit; I told them I was from Australia and about my trip (the usual). We introduced ourselves, the blokes name was Donato, the blonde woman was his ex-girlfriend, Daniella, and the brunette woman was Daniella's sister, Gabriella.
After a few minutes, Donato told me to follow him and he'd show me where the hostel was. Daniella said she'd watch my bike.
The hostel was only a minute or two's walk away, there were actually two right beside each other. It turned out that one of them was full, and the other ones reception was closed, so no luck there. We walked back to the bar and sat down. They kindly bought me a pot of camomile and lemon tea, and Daniella gave me her fur cardigan. These were just what I needed since I was getting cold. We chatted more, Daniella kept smiling kindly at me. She could speak the best English of the three of them. She told me the reason Donato liked me and was being friendly because I was a cyclist - he was also a cyclist apparently. He got me to feel his leg quadricepts. They mentioned a few times that they were all crazy. But also that they had good hearts so I needn't worry. Donato would also randomly break out into song.
Anyway, Donato offered for me to stay on the sofa in their flat, but warned that the flat was very small. I went along with it.
The four of us walked up to Donato's flat, and yes it was very small. We rearranged every item of furniture in the flat (that is, the sofa, a cabinet, a table and a coffee table) to create more space.
We all hung out in the flat for a while. Donato had a guitar so I had a strum on that.

Donato having a strum on his guitar in his flat in Rome.

Daniella told me she broke up with Donato because he was too crazy. But she said he was the best man she'd ever met, and they seemed very close. Donato had said a similar thing to me about Daniella.
I ate choc-chip biscuits and mandarins for tea, and a little later Gabriella went home since she had work the next morning. Donato and Daniella headed off to get pizza and go to some clubs. They actually both work at a club called rHome, one of them is the manager.
I decided not to go with them and went to sleep on their sofa at about 3am. It wasn't where I expected to be for my first night in Rome, but I was happy to be there, I'm always up free spontaneous accommodation.